Sgt Joch

exactly, artillery was the big killer in ww2. I saw a study that 70% of canadian/british casualties in Normandy were caused by german artillery/mortars.

well not really Deutsche Afrika Korps, but the present-day German Army in Afghanistan... http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/27/world/27germany.html

or maybe step back and ask if an invasion would make sense in the first place. Bashar Assad is a dictator, but a secular one. He is not an extremist or a religious fanatic. He is a member of the Alawi sect, which appears to be an offshoot of the Shiite religion, although interpretation differ on this point, while his wife is a Sunni who was raised in england. He has managed to keep the country stable, even though Syria has its own problems with muslim extremists. His actions, even the alliance with Iran and support of Hizbollah in Lebanon, are all logical decisions designed to keep the Assad family in power in Damascus. He is the type of dictator western countries would have been very happy to have in power during the cold war. Obviously, western pinkos are always hoping that any country can be turned into a western style liberal democracy, but the main and most organized opposition group is the Muslim Brotherhood which is more of an islamic organization, although again interpretation differs on that point, since they pay lip service to democratic reforms. IMHO, the results of an overthrow of the Assad family, either before or as a result of a NATO invasion, would be as unpredictable as what has happened in Iraq since 2003, but the most likely scenarios are: 1. civil strife/war leading to a weak/unstable democracy, like in Afghanistan/Iraq in 2009;or 2. civil strife/war leading to a Islamic dictatorship, like Afghanistan 1996-2001;

good point. This might be a situation where it would make more sense if night illumination, other than flares/starshell of course, had no effect on spotting. Otherwise, it would disadvantage the AI. I dont see how you can intelligently code the AI to avoid being illuminated by burning buildings/vehicles.

It has no effect at present, Steve had mentioned that coding would have to be done to allow night illumination to have an effect on spotting. I am also hoping it will be in Normandy.

The most unusual replacement scheme I read about was used by the Poles. The 1st Polish Armored Division suffered heavy losses in Normandy and obviously had no ready access to a replacement pool. They recruited replacements from German Army POWs who were Polish.... ...No idea how successful that was or if the replacements did a better job fighting for the Allies than for their former employers.

The beauty of CM is that you can discuss history and then see how it can be translated into game terms. The replacement system has an impact on scenarios and the campaign, on the quantity and quality of troops. U.S. units would typically be at or close to full strength before they start a major battle in june-july while German units in the line would be gradually ground down by casualties and lack of replacements.

we could probably argue about this for a long time, maybe we can just agree that the Canadian Army had better quality replacements. So how does this translate in game terms? I would think the allied troops which landed on D-Day, as well as the replacements in june-july, would be "regulars" with high/regular motivation. They have no battle experience but they have been training for years. The replacements after that would probably be a mixture of "regulars/green" with low/average motivation.

There were known problems with the US system, but the results were problably not as bleak as painted above. There appears to have been a generalized sentiment that all replacements were poorly trained and unmotivated. For example, the Canadians had a system which was midway between the US and British. The allocation of replacements was centralized, but an effort was made to allocate replacements to Regiments from their region and to integrate them into units before going into combat. After the supply of trained infantry replacements was expended in the Normandy campaign, a retraining program was started to transfer members from other corps to the infantry. Many commanders complained about the quality of these replacements. After one october battle where the Black Watch Battalion failed to capture a well defended position, the senior intelligence officer complained that was because the replacements received were ex-service corps members with little infantry training. poor morale, poor tactics who had arrived only hours before the battle. Yet Copp in "Cinderella Army" did a study of the battles fought by the battalion in october and found no evidence that the combat performance of companies with a high percentage of replacements was worse than companies with a low percentage. This is admitedly a small sample, but I wonder to what extent the common wisdom that replacements were lousy is based on self serving explanations rather than real evidence. If you examine the battalion/company sized actions fought between the Canadians and Germans in 44, the quality of the infantry appears to be about even on both sides.

Another issue, although this relates more to conditions on the frontline in 44-45, is what happens to specialist troops. All infantry Divisions typically are made up of only one-third infantry men, the rest being various support units like artillery, engineers, supply, etc. Infantry typically suffers about 90% of the combat losses. Under the U.S. system, since the infantry losses are replenished as required, support units rarely had to go into combat. In German divisions however, since they had trouble getting replacements, it was not unusual that after a few weeks of combat, artillerymen, engineers and other support staff, would fight as infantry resulting, inevitably in the loss of valuable specialists.

The problem with the german system is that it did not work in practice, under the conditions which existed at the front in 44-45. Divisions would remain in the front lines without replacements until they were basically destroyed. In fact, the Germans were already having problems in 41 after the Eastern Front became a meat grinder. For example, look at the 352nd infantry division which defended Normandy. It was raised in early 44 from the Hannoverian region of germany. It was built around a nucleus of veteran officers and NCOs with the rest of the forces being made up of 17-18 year old recruits. It had a "Replacement" battalion in Normandy where replacements newly arrived from Germany were integrated into the combat units and a Divisional Replacement Depot back home which raised and trained replacements before sending them to the front. Once the fighting in Normandy started, it became nearly impossible for the depot back home to send replacements up to the front in Normandy because of Allied air superiority and the "Replacement" battalion was quickly committed to combat as a unit. As a result, the 352nd was basically destroyed in june-july, fighting from the beaches down to St-Lo. Steve has pointed out the problems with the U.S. system. The ideal system would be one where Divisions were regularly pulled out of combat, so replacements could be integrated into the units, before the Division went back into the line. In fact, under early war plans, the U.S. army was supposed to create 213 divisions, which could have made this possible. However, it quickly became apparent that 89 divisions was all that was practical given the fact that the U.S was fighting 2 wars at the same time and also had to build up a Navy and an Air Force. Under the circumstances, the U.S. replacement system was the only practical solution if Divisions were to have the required manpower to fight the German and Japanese Army at the same time for extended periods. In practice, you also have to note that U.S. Divisions were not in continuous combat from june 44 to may 45. Divisions were pulled out of the line from time to time and there were extended periods where little or no major combat was taking place which gave replacements some time to be integrated into their units.

I have always had trouble with the British Army. There always seems to be an "official" method and the way "things are done", which only the brits seem to understand. It is like the fine distinction that supporting TAC Air and Armour are not "..under the command of.." but "..act in conjunction with.." infantry units...I mean, who is in charge?

Blaming Monty for a lack of British replacements in late 44 is a stretch since he had no control over that policy. By late 44, all combatants were having trouble finding replacements, especially for infantry units. In part, this was a structural issue. The British Army still had an obsolecent system where replacements were raised at a regimental level, fine when you fighting Zulus, but hopelessly inadequate once large scale ground fighting broke out. When casualties turned out to be higher than expected, this replacement system broke down and they had to resort to expedients, such as breaking up other infantry units to find trained replacements. This was not just a British problem, the Canadian Army, which had seen relatively little fighting before sicily, was already running out of trained volonteers by the end of august. The change required to allow draftees to be sent into combat caused a major political crisis back home. The german system, where each division raised and trained their own replacements, also turned out to be totally useless in 44-45 and german divisions, once they entered combat, were quickly ground down. The only army which had a well designed system was the U.S. Army. A lot of people have complained about the flaws of the U.S. replacement depot concept, but it had the big advantage of being able to bring U.S. combat units back up to full strength in the shortest time and was the only system designed to cope with large scale attrition warfare.

I reviewed some of my reference material. Let's look at an example of how amphibious assaults were carried out at the same time in the Pacific. Saipan, june 15 1944 The U.S. wanted to capture Saipan to setup B-29 bases. Saipan was defended by 32,000 japanese military personnel, 1 Army division, 1 Army brigade, 1 navy brigade, various smaller units, artillery including 8x 6 inch guns, 90 tanks. The assault force was made up of 2 USMC divisions. The infantry was landed in 700 LVTs. Each wave was composed of 100 LVTs, including about 20 LVT (A) which carried no troops, but were armed with 37 or 75 mm guns for fire support. The LVTs landed troops at the water's edge or up to 500 yds inland depending on the tactical situation. The LVTs would then retire and make way for the next wave 5 minutes behind. Enemy resistance was heavy and continued all day, through the night and the next morning. There were no beach obstacles, but artillery, mortars, MG fire crisscrossed the beach. Artillery FOs in the mountains could view the beach and call down fire. Many LVTs were lost, but 8,000 marines had landed by nightfall. I do not have the casualty figures for june 15th, but for the campaign as whole to july 9, the 67,000 americans suffered 3,300 dead, 13,000 wounded. No doubt, the LVTs reduced casualties since troops inside were protected from MG fire and shrapnel from nearby artillery/mortar bursts. The LVTs could cross the beach, where troops would be most vulnerable, and deposit them in a spot where they would find some cover and maintain unit cohesion. This is also how modern amphibious assaults are carried out since the USMC AAV in CMSF is the direct descendant of the WW2 LVT. Omaha Beach Let's now look at how the assault was carried out on Omaha Beach on D-Day. The first wave landed at the water's edge one hour after low tide, which meant that troops each carrying 40-60 lbs of equipment had to cross 700 yds of wet sand with no cover whatsoever until they hit the beach road, all the while being subjected to MG, mortar and artillery fire. The first two waves which hit "Dog Green", 3 companies in all (arguably the deadliest part of the beach) were literally wiped out within a few minutes of landing. I have trouble seeing why the approach used at Saipan could not have been used in Normandy. LVTs are only 2 feet wider than DD tanks and could have navigated around the Beach obstacles and the amount of firepower put out by the German defenders does not appear to have been worse than what the Japanese put up on many Pacific islands.

Good point. In june 44, the US/UK/Canadian/Polish/French forces were about equal in terms of tactical competence with the German forces. There were mistakes on both sides, but since it was easier for the Allies to replenish any casualties/equipment caused by the "mistakes" of their officers (since invariably it is always the non-coms/privates that pay for their officers "experiments"), it was inevitable that the Allies would win. It is not pretty or an "elegant" way to win, but that is the nature of attrition warfare. For example, "Goodwood" is seen as a major blunder by Monty, but the more I look at that battle, the more I think that he saw it as a gamble: 1) if it works, fine, we breakout; 2) if it does not work and I lose armor at a 3:1 ratio to the germans (more or less what happened), fine, my tank losses will be made up tomorrow, the German's won't...

They would certainly have reduced casualties from MG fire and would have carried infantry over the barbed wire that blocked much of the beach road. LVTs were already in common usage in the Pacific from Tarawa in November 43. How much of impact they would have had is, of course, open to debate...

There was a large amount of snobbishness and conservatism on the part of U.S. Army officers in Europe. Some officers freshly transferred in from the Pacific in early 44, wanted LVTs to be used for the landings rather than the LCVPs which were in fact used: LVTs landing at Tinian, July 44. LCVP The LVTs, which are tracked and can go up on the beach, would certainly have reduced casualties on Omaha, but the feeling among U.S. officers at SHAEF seems to have been that there was nothing useful to be learned from the Pacific....or from the British. The Canadians used the Crocodile and the AVRE throughout the Normandy campaign and found them very useful to clear out german strongpoints.

...and this quote is for Sergei...

Here is a quote from the Doubler article. From what I can see, all the U.S. leaders were more or less aware of Bocage, but since they were all focused just on D-Day itself, no one realized the implications until they were actually in it:

this one, I presume: http://cgsc.leavenworth.army.mil/carl/resources/csi/doubler/doubler.asp German Hedgerow defence The 29th Infantry Division's hedgerow tactics

There is also the reality that there were only a few places in France where you could land and supply the Allied armies. Normandy was not necessarily the best, but certainly had less disadvantages than the other possibilities. Omaha beach is a good example of that, it is one of the worst beach where you would want to land since it is overlooked by surrounding high ground and there are only a few exits, all of which can be easily blocked, but again, once the decision was made to land at Normandy, it was the only beach available between Utah and Gold. Another factor which everyone now forgets is that no one on the Allied side even knew if the invasion would work. Everyone was focused just on D-Day itself, just making sure they could land and stay. In the can. 3rd division, everyone trained for months to carry out the invasion until they knew by heart what they were supposed to do on D-Day, but everybody was a bit fuzzy on what would happen on D+1 and after.

One thing which "Beyond the Beachead" really brings home is how omnipresent Bocage was in the american sector. The 29th division fought from Omaha beach down to St-lo in July and then on through to Vire in early august. The entire countryside from Omaha beach to Vire was covered by Bocage. It was perfect defensive terrain, the americans had to develop new tactics and specialized equipment to fight effectively in Bocage. The Germans were able to hold them off with just infantry. The 29th never encountered any german armor, other than a handful of Stugs, until it ran into part of the Mortain counterattack in early august. The 116th Regiment, which had 3,300 men on the morning of june 6th, suffered 4,500 casualties, including 1,000 dead, before the 29th was finally pulled off the front in mid-august. In contrast, the terrain in the British sector was relatively open tank country. In the Canadian sector, troops did not encounter any Bocage until late august in the battles to close the Falaise gap. This probably explains why the Germans concentrated their armor against the British sector. As early as june 7th, the Can. 3rd inf. division was already in combat against Panzer Lehr and 12th SS armor.

I am sure there will not be an official announcement, but at what point do we consider the Iraq war to be over as far as the U.S. is concerned? Is it over now since all security responsibilities were turned over to the Iraqis on june 30?. if not when? http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/09/world/middleeast/09pullout.html?_r=1&ref=world

slightly OT, but that is done to protect the gun from Allied naval gunfire. It cannot fire out to sea since its purpose is to fire on troops/vehicles landing on the beach. Typically, the top and seaward side would be several feet thick, making it almost impervious to naval or air bombardement. The gun could only fire down the beach on one side, but another identical gun emplacement would be placed farther down the beach to cover its rear. With enough guns, you can cover the whole beach. The Allies ran into a lot of these on D-day, almost all had to be taken out by infantry/tank assaults.

I am also reading "Beyond the Beachhead". It describes Bocage as earthen walls, typically 2-3 meters high, 2-3 meters wide, but often bigger, covered by very thick hedges, sometimes hundred of years old, with dense roots interlacing the walls and making them almost impossible to dig through. In theory, you could approximate the walls by playing with the elevation contours in the present map editor, but it would look better with a dedicated "Bocage" tile.